Breaking Stalin's Nose

(A 2012 Newbery Honor Book and a Washington Post and Horn Book Best Children's Book of the Year) Sasha Zaichik has known the laws of the Soviet Young Pioneers since the age of six: the Young Pioneer is devoted to Comrade Stalin, the Communist Party, and Communism. A Young Pioneer is a reliable comrade and always acts according to conscience. But now that it is finally time to join the Young Pioneers, Sasha's father, the best Communist he knows, is arrested by the secret police. In his first novel, for readers 10 and up, Russian-born illustrator Eugene Yelchin tells a moving story—masterful in its simplicity and powerful in its message—of a boy's world shattering.

"A miracle of brevity, this affecting novel zeroes in on two days and one boy to personalize Stalin's killing machine of the '30s.... Black and white drawings march across the pages to juxtapose hope and fear, truth and tyranny, small moments and historical forces, innocence and evil. This Newbery Honor book offers timeless lessons about dictatorship, disillusionment and personal choice."—SFChronicle